Rattmann goes on a Picnic
by BiliousKaiju
Summary: Doug Rattmann goes on a picnic and almost dies.


So after Comic Con I decided to write a fanfiction.

From the silly person who brought you Rorschach Adopts a Cat and it Helps Him Solve a Mystery, and Rorschach Buys Ice Cream I bring you **Rattmann goes on a Picnic.**

**Title:** Rattmann Goes on a Picnic  
**Characters/Pairings:** Rattmann/Companion Cube  
**Summary:** It is as it sounds like.  
**Rating/Warnings:** Not much happens, but he does almost die. Rated G I suppose!

He wondered what season it was. Time was a difficult thing to grasp, and was built differently than it used to be, consisting now of strict schedules and fitful amounts of sleep. He had given up on specifics.

He tried to remember the last time he had been out for longer than a minute – yes, that time in the lower hide-away that the enormity and hopelessness of his situation had become mentally unbearable and he had shut down for a period. It had only been when his companion had insisted he find something to eat or he would probably die and that wouldn't do either of them any good that he had found the will to keep moving.

He wondered if turrets slept.

_She_ certainly didn't.

His fingers were sticky with paint.

A good night's sleep, he had decided, was boiled down into a simple equation: S=(A*P)/C where in S, meaning 'sleep' was equal to a sense of accomplishment (a), multiplied by a feeling of peace (p), divided by comfort (c). Even if you could boil an emotion down to a number, if that number is 0, S=0, and the total sum became-

"I have a surprise for you."

The voice made him hesitate. He had been trying to work it out on the wall again. If he could risk booting up a computer that was connected to the system, he could probably figure out a date, but did he _want_ to know?

"A surprise?"

"Through there."

He rose, and his companion followed at his shoulder, wobbling across the grate floor as machinery buzzed below. The companion directed him with a touch of excitement in it's voice, as though they were on a treasure hunt.

The metaphorical X marked an unlocked door, but stepping through, he gasped. Had they passed through a portal?

The companion took a seat on the blanket, but he couldn't move, staring at the endless blue sky, swirling with clouds, green grass, soft under his feet. He could feel the cool breeze across his face, there was a stream and even a few nearby patches of trees…

Across the blanket was a delicious spread: turkey sandwiches, bags of m&ms, and even one of those fancy tall bottles of gourmet soda that was more like sparkling juice. Fresh apples and… he sank down onto the blanket, drinking it all in.

"How?"

"We can't stay here long," his companion admitted sadly, "But you seemed like you could use a break."

"I…" he couldn't find words. Instead, he fell backward onto the grass, staring up at the endless blue and warm orange light of the sun, real and proper sun bearing down, filling him up. His chest tightened and a strangled noise escaped his throat. "Why can't we stay here?"

"The tea will get cold."

He looked down, and the cup was waiting for him, a soothing brown against white china mug. His nose tingled with it's inviting smell.

"I could sleep here, it's perfect." Comfort- soft grass, he'd rate it a 9, peace a definite 10, although now he reconsidered his formula, wondering how he might work in an R factor for levels of relief, although that could be categorized as a P factor…

"No, it's just a break," His companion's voice grew tense.

He lifted the cup to his lips, and for a brief moment, he tasted it. Rich and soothing across his tongue, bitter with tea and sweet with sugar, until it filled his senses and something in the back of his mind clicked and he suddenly choked.

The brown liquid hit the blanket and the world spun as he gagged and coughed. Reality is an experience crafted and directed by the brain, and just a small epiphany can change your entire world.

He washed out the metallic taste of rusty, oily, contaminated water with a few mouthfuls of the clear reserve he kept in a plastic bottle in his lab coat pocket.

"You almost made me drink that!" he rasped once he had caught his breath.

"We need to go." His companion insisted, making no comment on what it may or may not have almost done.

They were in a test chamber, he realized, an old, abandoned one missing half it's power and containing very little- except a half rotted throw tarp littered with a few cans of beans and paint splatters. The blue sky was erratically splashed across the ceiling, exposed white panels forming abstract clouds, and he didn't even want to know what green sludge had been dumped to make the "grass", but only now he could feel it sticking to the back of his coat. The stream bubbled with toxicity and was certainly not something he wanted to soak his feet in.

"We need to go _now_."

He scrambled for the cans of beans just as the floor under them lurched and a voice – a real voice that actually hit his ears and vibrated his ear drums and made his head ache with it's sudden undeniable reality made him hesitate in horror.

"The funny thing about desecrating my security cameras… I get very curious about those blind spots."

The ground heaved, and he scrambled in the slippery green goop. An earthquake was splitting the previously serene field only it wasn't a field anymore, he remembered, and he couldn't recall what he had mixed to make so much green but his skin was itching where it was smeared -

"Run!" his companion clung to his back as the testing chamber split, and the sun he had enjoyed so much, swirling and orange on the ceiling came crashing down.

"Rodent infestations can be tricky to deal with," Sighed the metallic voice, but there was a touch of dry humor to it, "One just needs to flush out their little holes…"

The exit was just up ahead, a panel propped open by one of his companion's brothers, but the floor ripped away and he scrambled back.

"Chewing tough wires until they get shocked…"

"We're trapped!"

"No, I've got an idea," He patted his companion before backing away and running in the opposite direction. He could hear the whirring of mechanics hauling in the turrets, he only had seconds.

He ran, and his shoes slid along the fallen sun, propelling him forward past the momentarily surprised looking computer beast, and he was sky born, bouncing off of blue broken painting and the chasm passed under them as he curled around his companion and rolled, shoulders smashing against the ajar panel.

"Where are you?" The turrets sang as their own panels flipped open, firing wildly just to be sure, but the rat had already vanished.

He didn't stop running until the sounds of frustrated, homicidal computers were a distant echo, and they stopped to catch their breath.

"I'm sorry. That was my fault." Guilt dripped from his companion, and he wrapped his arms around it.

"It was a nice picnic," He assured it softly. It had certainly helped him focus. He shouldn't be concentrating on computations for abstract ideas. He needed a way out. A way to feel real sun. "We had a lot of fun." More or less. It was only now that the adrenalin was dying off and exhaustion swept over him like a heavy fog in his mind that he realized he was bleeding. "I think I broke my shoulder."

"No you didn't. We need to keep moving. It's not safe in this sector any more."

And so, together, they did.


End file.
